…The district attorney’s office “explored online family trees that appeared to have matches to DNA samples from the East Area Rapist’s crimes,” The Sacramento Bee reported. “They then followed clues to individuals in family trees to determine whether they were potential suspects.”…

Scottsdale, AZ, police arrested 42-year-old Ian L. Mitcham for the February 2015 murder of Scottsdale resident Allison Feldman. His arrest in Phoenix Tuesday morning marked the culmination of an intense three-year investigation into Feldman’s death. A familial DNA search ultimately led to the arrest, according to a Scottsdale, AZ, press release.
On Feb. 18, 2015, a woman soon identified as 31-year-old Allison Feldman was found dead, and her death was quickly determined to be a homicide. A DNA profile was developed from evidence at the scene, but unfortunately no match was found in the current databases.

The parents of slain jogger Karina Vetrano received further solace on Friday after the New York State Commission on Forensic Science announced that the familial-DNA genetic search tool can now be utilized in the state.
Phil and Cathy Vetrano had been advocates of the policy for months; they held a press conference on February 3 during which they endorsed the tool, which searches law-enforcement DNA databases for relatives of a genetic profile that forensics build at the scene of a crime.

A special state subcommittee Friday will be fine tuning a proposal for New York State to use familial searching, an emerging DNA technique used to solve cold case homicides around the country.
The DNA subcommittee of the New York State Commission on Forensic Science will be voting on details of the plan to use familial searching, proposals that have been in the works since the beginning of the year. Under proposed guidelines, special DNA analysis will be allowed in cases of homicide, rape, arson and crimes involving “a significant public safety threat.”

The Louisiana State Police Crime Lab is preparing to expand its criminal DNA testing to include a controversial technique known as familial searching, a tool that could breathe new life into aging cold cases by identifying close relatives of suspects.
Louisiana intends to join a growing list of states that over the past decade have cautiously adopted the technique, which has been hailed by detectives as a potential game-changer in solving crimes but has been assailed by critics as ethically and legally questionable.

The leads have dried up in the killing of a young woman in Queens during a jog last summer.
Tips about potential suspects have gone nowhere. A reward has failed to bear fruit, even as it has swelled to over $280,000. And the samples of a stranger’s DNA found on the hands, throat and cellphone of the jogger, Karina Vetrano, 30, did not match those in national offender databases.

Investigators used a controversial DNA testing method to solve the decades-old killing of the ex-wife of Righteous Brothers singer Bill Medley, the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department said Friday.
Karen Klaas was attacked Jan. 30, 1976 as she returned to her home in Hermosa Beach. The 32-year-old was sexually assaulted, strangled with her pantyhose and never regained consciousness. She died a few days later at the hospital.

For 25 years, police in southern Los Angeles struggled to identify the perpetrator responsible for killing at least 10 black women over the course of three decades, known as “The Grim Sleeper.”
DNA samples left at the crime scenes matched nobody in any databases and detectives seemed to be out of leads.
Enter familial DNA testing, a method in which investigators take a sample and look for a match in the databases to determine if it matches that of anyone’s close male relative — the search tests the Y chromosome, passed down by the father — registered in any criminal databases.

The state’s early success using familial DNA searches to identify the so-called “Grim Sleeper” serial killer led Los Angeles Police Chief Charlie Beck to predict that the method would “change the way policing is done in the United States.” Civil liberty groups expressed alarm, saying the searches raised significant ethical and privacy concerns. Some questioned their legality.

Salt Lake City — (KUTV) Tooele police made an arrest Friday, in a 5-year-old murder case, thanks to new DNA technology.
Rogelia Diaz Jr., 23, of West Valley City was arrested near his home. He was linked back to the Tooele crime scene where 69-year-old Evelynne Derricot was killed in 2011. He was charged in 3rd District Court Monday with first-degree felony murder, first-degree aggravated burglary and a second-degree felony theft.

Los Angeles- Debra, a waitress, was discovered shot in the chest three decades ago in an alley. The body of 25-year-old Janecia was found in a dumpster in 2007. There were at least eight other women. And one who got away.

Posted onNovember 15, 2014byForensicConnect|Comments Off on World’s End murder trial: Meet the DNA expert and unlikely hero whose work was pivotal in catching killer Angus Sinclair

IT WAS a small section cut from Helen Eadie’s raincoat that provided the “eureka” moment police had so desperately sought for over 30 years.
Forensic scientist Lester Knibb had only been qualified for a year when he was given samples from the scene of the murders.

…The case was considered cold until a breakthrough came in 2013, when a man was questioned in connection to a domestic violence case. A DNA sample obtained from the man was entered into the police DNA database — and yielded a familial match to DNA evidence collected from Eyal’s body. The man in the domestic violence case, the DNA test showed, was the father of the suspect in Eyal’s murder…

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